Jay Shetty

Jay Shetty, born on 6 September 1987 in London, is a British podcaster, author, entrepreneur, and life coach whose public career grew in the social media age. Raised in Barnet, North London, in a Hindu family of Indian origin, he has spoken often about mental health, life purpose, relationships, and self-discipline. His mother is Gujarati and was raised in Yemen, while his father is a Tulu Bunt from Mangalore. Shetty attended Queen Elizabeth’s School, Barnet, and graduated in 2010 from Bayes Business School at City St George’s, University of London, with a degree in Management science.

Shetty has described the Hare Krishna movement as an early influence. From childhood, he claims to have been a member of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, or ISKCON. He has also said that a 2006 event in France connected to the ISKCON Pandava Sena brought him a “massive transformation.” Around 2007, while in business school, he claims to have met Gauranga Das, a monk who spoke about selflessness and a minimalist lifestyle. Shetty says he then followed Gauranga on part of his lecture circuit in the United Kingdom and later spent summers in India interning at corporations and training with ISKCON.

His account of his monk-like years has been questioned. Shetty has often claimed that from 2010 to 2013 he lived the ISKCON lifestyle at an undisclosed ashram in Mumbai, India. However, blog posts and people familiar with his movements during that period indicate that he spent much of that time making promotional videos at Bhaktivedanta Manor in Watford. In one blog post, Shetty wrote that he arrived in India in October 2010 and spent less than four months in the country before leaving again. Even with those disputes, the language of discipline, service, and simplicity became central to the way he presented his work.

Shetty began his career at Accenture, working on digital strategy and coaching executives on social media. In 2016, he left to become an independent content creator. Arianna Huffington hired him to make videos for HuffPost on subjects such as relationships, and after he stopped working there in early 2017, he continued releasing videos on Facebook and YouTube. By 2019, he had more than 1 million subscribers on YouTube and 20 million followers on Facebook. In 2018, he appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and Red Table Talk, and became the “personal spiritual adviser” to Will Smith.

In 2019, Shetty launched the podcast On Purpose, which was downloaded 64 million times in its first year and was called the number one health podcast in the world by Forbes. In July 2023, he interviewed U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House about mental health initiatives. His first book, Think Like a Monk, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2020. His second, 8 Rules of Love: How to Find It, Keep It, and Let It Go, also from Simon & Schuster, became a New York Times best-seller within a week. He has also co-founded Icon Media, launched the tea brand Juni with his wife Radhi, joined Calm in 2022, and become part of the ownership group of Angel City of the National Women’s Soccer League.

Recognition has followed, including a 2016 Asian Media Award for Best Blog, a 2018 Streamy Award, the Outstanding Achievement Online Award at The Asian Awards in 2019, Best in Health & Wellness at the 11th Shorty Awards, and a place on Time magazine’s 2025 “TIME100 Creators” list. His career has also drawn criticism, including a 2019 attribution dispute over Instagram quotes and a 2024 Guardian investigation into claims made by the Jay Shetty Certification School. Still, many readers and listeners come to his words for their clear, practical tone. A line such as “If you can build muscle, you can build a mindset” reflects the appeal: change is framed not as mystery, but as practice.